Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Lets "Deck the Halls" with a little bit of Christmas cheer. I'm not sure anyone can look at this layout and not smile at the cutest little Elves ever. This is the finished product.

I found the paper piecing pattern at My Scrap Chick. Couldn't resist them and the best part is it came in a bundle with a bunch more. Their names are Baxter and Bella, she has a whole series of patterns built around them. I imported them into my SCAL program, adjusted the size so the heads were almost 2 inches big and cut them out using my Cricut. The tree I guessed at resizing and then Cuddle bugged for extra dimension. I also decided to decorate the tree with some paper flowers.

Here's a close up of Bella. I just hand drew her eyes and the marks inside the bells. I didn't think they would cut well, nor did I want to try gluing them on. I highlighted some spots with a white gel pen and she was done.

Here's Baxter. He's actually wearing little overalls, so cute. Again I hand drew his eyes and the bells. I used some chalk on his cheeks and nose.

The title is my favorite font right now: CK Jolly Elf. It welds so nicely. The shadow-blackout feature in SCAL makes it easy to pop dot the words for a fantastic title. I added a few white gel pen details. Some simple stitching on my photo mats. Just a little touch that I think adds a lot.

I hope these two help put you in the holiday spirit. Let me know what you think. I'd love to hear from you.

Friday, December 11, 2009

So today's adventure will involve Freezer paper, your iron, a Cricut and some fabric paint. It's like having your own silk screening machine. And it's FUN! So you'll want to pick a design and then decide if your using words. If you are you'll need to flip the letters and spell backwards. Yep you'll need a mirror image of your words. Now if you have DS this is pretty easy, if you don't it may take a little more work on your part.

So you've decided on a design and you've cut your Freezer paper to 12x12. You need to apply it shiny/waxy side up. Otherwise it won't stick to your mat. The blade depth I used was a 4 and the pressure was med (3) and the speed was med (3). I also recommend a good mat. You don't want it too sticky but it needs to hold the paper well. I had a lot of tearing when the mat was a bummer one. Cut your image and heat up that iron. Center your image and iron it in place. Now it's important to have to steam function turned off and you'll iron with the waxy side down. Iron all the negative pieces into place. I strongly recommend a piece of cardboard inside your shirt. The paint may bleed a bit and we don't want it on the inside of our shirt.

I used Scribbles fabric paint from Mike's or Jo's, it cost about $1.20 a bottle. You'll need a foam paint brush too. (Double check all your edges, you won't want any bleeding.) I put a line of paint inside all the letters and shapes, then using the foam brush spread it around until I covered the space totally.

Give it a couple minutes and then go back to make sure you've covered everything completely. Do any necessary touch up. The directions on my paint recommended letting the paint dry for 4 hrs. OK. I gave it an hour and it was dry to the touch. After 4 hrs I peeled the eye parts out and painted them.

Thought it was white paint but it was glitter and picked up the color of the shirt. OK we have glittery eyes on our bug. Still really cute. Next time I will start with the eyes, then paint the face with the glitter and then the dark outline last. You can just keep ironing the paper pieces back into the right positions. So cool.

And finally the back. I didn't have it quite centered but if you know me you know I'm a bit off anyway. And if you forget to flip the question mark, you have a really fun conversation piece on the back of your shirt.

I learned a few things while experimenting with this process:1. Have patience and correct things that are wrong2. Check your paint colors before you start to paint.3. At $1.20 it's OK to buy an extra tube or 2 of paint to make sure you have the right color.4.The foam brush is important. The more you work the paint into the fabric the less likely it is to crack and peel off.

This was a great way to personalize a shirt. It would make a fun kids craft day project. I hope my efforts have inspired you to give this a try. I can see myself doing this again in the future. If you've enjoyed this post please feel free to leave a comment. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Well I was surfing my bookmarks today and came across my page on Paper Craft Planet. I had joined a group over there in the summer where Jen Tapler puts out a sketch to motivate you every Sunday. It's called Scrappy Sunday, check it out. I was so inspired by this layout:

I right away created this page:

Totally thrilled. I got to use my "Tuckered out" mouse. He's a paper piecing from Precious Piecings. I also tried out SCAL (Sure Cuts Alot) for the title. It has the most awesome shadow feature. You have your word all set, go over to features and click the feature you'd like to use. Your options are shadow, blackout or shadow blackout. So cool. It does it automatically. No fussing around with trying to match them up yourself. I chose a CK font called Jolly Elf. Now if my Design Studio did this I'd never look at another program again. Can you imagine Shadow and blackout features for every shape and letter, no matter how you weld them.

Here's one more look at my little mouse:

Tomorrow is the beginning of our December Crop over at Scrap Sister Studios. Can't wait I'm actually going to be able to participate on and off all weekend. I should have some really good posts coming up. So stay tuned. If your bored come check us out.

Thursday, December 3, 2009

When it's cold outside you get to warm up with this fun snowman layout. More paper piecing patterns from My Scrap Chick. I'm totally in love with them. They cut like a charm and go together easey peasey. I did minimal inking on this layout. A bit abnormal for me but they just didn't need it. I did ink the bird house and the snow on top the title.

Here's a closer look at my snowman. The left one has a bit of snow on his hat and arms. If you didn't want to cut the white pieces out you could easily use Flower Soft and it would look really good too.

I spent a few minutes arranging the pattern pieces on my cutting mat, I ended up with 3 pages to cut. The first one had the trees, the other 2 had the snowman and birdhouse parts. I figured if I got everything out of 3 cuts I was doing pretty good. Again so glad I invested in the SCAL program.

I have about 10 other snowman patterns to play with so be on the look out for a few more. Remember also Friday is Feaky at The Scrapbook Zone. Come visit me I work 10-6.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

As you've seen I'm into playing with some wonderful paper piecing patterns lately. My favorite place to browse at the moment is called My Scrap Chick. At this time she has a wonderful sale going on. Head on over and take a look. When you spend $25 or more your entire order is 50% off. Now you have some choices as to what you want to do with these patterns. If you own a Cricut and SCAL (Sure Cuts A Lot) you can import the SVG file and cut away. If you don't they also come as a PDF pattern and you can hand cut the images. They come in a couple other formats as well in case you have a Shillouette or a Pazzles cutter. I'm hoping later tonight to come back and post some more pictures of what I've been creating. But we all know how that goes so it could take me longer.

Thanks for checking in today. Go be crafty!

EDITED: OK it's a small miracle but I'm adding a picture of today's paper piecing. The entire layout isn't done just yet but it's too cute not to share at least part of it.

I hope you enjoy it and that it inspires you in some way. I enjoy comments so if you like it, leave a bit of bloggy love to let me know.